The back-to-back Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys (HCES), which were conducted during August 2022 – July 2023 and August 2023 – July 2024, have found out a wide variation both in average per capita per day calorie intake and average per consumer unit per day calorie intake among the major states.
”Based on the food consumption data and utilising the nutrient content values of different food items estimates of per day per capita and per day per consumer unit intake of calorie, protein and fat has been generated at various levels of disaggregation, namely, state, sector, fractile classes of Monthly Per Capita Consumption Expenditure (MPCE) are collated and published in the form of a report entitled ‘Nutritional Intake in India’,” an official release issued here on Wednesday said.
A similar pattern in the average per day per capita and per consumer unit calorie intake is observed in rural and urban India in 2022-23 and 2023-24.
An increase in average per capita per day and per consumer unit per day calorie intake is observed for the bottom five fractile classes in rural India and for the bottom six fractile classes for urban in 2023-24 from 2022-23. A wide variation both in average per capita per day calorie intake and average per consumer unit per day calorie intake is observed among the major states in 2022-23 as well as in 2023-24.
With an increase in the Monthly Per Capita Consumption Expenditure (MPCE), the average calorie intake also increases in rural as well as urban India.
In each sector, the average calorie intake (per capita or per consumer unit) is seen to be improving with an increase in MPCE.
The difference between the bottom fractile class (bottom 5 per cent of population ranked by per capita expenditure level) and the top fractile class (top 5 per cent of population ranked by per capita expenditure level) in per capita calorie intake as well as per consumer unit calorie intake has narrowed significantly in 2023-24 in rural as well as urban India.
It has been a practice in the National Statistics Office (NSO) to bring out a comprehensive report providing information on nutritional intake by the Indian population with a detailed break-up of estimates of per capita intake of energy (Calorie), protein, and fa,t and its distribution over households and persons, it said.
To date, five such reports have been published.